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June 26, 2015

This week a look at three incredibly powerful photo essays including Arnau Bach’s seminal work, Suburbia, plus Bruce Gilden hits the Paris Metro, Australians on show at PhotoIreland and Auckland Festival of Photography’s inaugural charity auction.

Photo Essays:Japanese American Internment SurvivorsPaul Kitagaki Jr

During WWII more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were interned in camps in the USA. Dorothea Lange, amongst others, photographed many of those detained in California. Photographer Paul Kitagaki Jr’s family was amongst them. 70 years later he has revisited those original photographs, tracking down others pictured and where possible shooting them in the same location as the original images. Kitagaki also interviewed his subjects about their experiences. It’s an emotional series that reminds us the human toll of war extends far beyond the battlefields to impact those who through their ethnicity are fated to be called enemies. To see more images and read the full story visit Mother Jones

Dorothea Lange also photographed Kitagaki’s family. Above, his grandparents Suyematsu Kitagaki and Juki Kitagaki are with their children, Kimiko (11yo) and his father Kiyoshi (14yo) in Oakland, California. They were interned in the Topaz Internment Camp in Utah in 1942.Below: In this photo Paul Kitagaki Jr. (far right) is pictured with his father (centre) and aunt Kimiko (second from left) at the same location as the original photograph.

Above: This iconic image by Dorothea Lange features 70-year-old Sakutaro Aso and his grandsons Shigeo Jerry Aso and Sadao Bill Aso. They were deported from California in 1942. Bill (below right) told Kitagaki, "When I look at the picture, I can see my grandfather realized that something terrible was happening and his life was never going to be the same again. That was the end of the line for him”.

Shigeo Jerry Aso and Sadao Bill Aso (C) Paul Kitagaki Jr

Above: Helene Nakamoto Mihara (left) and Mary Ann Yahiro (center) taken by Dorothea Lange in San Francisco 1942. Both girls ended up in Topaz Internment Camp in Utah. Mary Ann, pictured on the right below with Helene, and her mother were separated and never saw each other again.

(C) Paul Kitagaki Jr

Girls in JusticeRichard Ross

“Been here two months for a violation. They make me take out all the studs they can. But the one in my throat and in my cheeks are implants. I ran away from placement. It was a group home with 65 kids in Critinton, Orange County.” 15 year old.

American photographer and academic Richard Ross has been working on his long term project to document the juvenile justice system in that country for the best part of a decade. After photographing detention centres in more than 30 states Ross has no doubt the system is failing these kids. He hopes his photographs can shine a light on the plight that a growing number of American teens face.

“I should be a sophomore but I have no credits for school. The last grade I completed was eighth. My mom visits. She isn’t a parent; she’s a teenager in a parent body.” 16 year old.

Girls make up the largest number of juvenile detainees in the system and some are as young as ten. Ross, who is a professor at the University of California, has published a second book on the project - Girls in Justice - that specifically focuses on this group. Many are in detention for minor offences, and carry the scars of emotional and physical abuse often at the hands of their families. Others have nowhere else to go.

Ross photographs the girls to obscure their faces. “If you see a face, you can say, ‘well, I’m glad that’s not my kid. But if the face is obscured, it could stand in for anybody’s kid,” he says.

“I was four months when I first came in the system. My mom didn’t have a house; she lost it. I’m here with my sister, but my sister’s now with a foster family. If it works out, she gets to stay. But she told me it’s not gonna work out and she’ll be back to see me.” 11 year old.

“They took me from my mom at age 12 because she’s had drug problems. She was beating me, and I was molested by her friends. I think I was born in Asheville, North Carolina, but at this point I don’t really live anywhere.” 15 year old.

“My mom is deceased. Drug overdose. I stayed with my auntie until I was 11 in Compton. She was abusive, verbally and physically. I went to maybe 15–20 foster homes.” 16 year old.

You can see more of Richard Ross’s work on juveniles in justice on the website Juvenile in Justice
Read the full interview with Ross at Slate.com

SuburbiaArnau Bach

(C) Arnau Bach

(C) Arnau Bach

(C) Arnau Bach

(C) Arnau Bach

(C) Arnau Bach

(C) Arnau Bach

Spanish photographer Arnau Bach spent four years photographing the inhabitants of Seine-Saint-Denis, one of the most populated, and poverty stricken areas of Paris. Here 1.5 million people live in close quarters. Unemployment and crime are high and hope for a better tomorrow faint. On his website Arnau says, “This work seeks to reflect on the lifestyle of youth in these ghettos: their gregarious existence and their love for hip-hop culture, the lack of opportunity and the absence of social services and recreational facilities which leads them to stay idle in the streets. Beyond the harshness of their social codes, youth culture rebels as an act of resistance against of a present where they don’t have much to gain and even less to lose.”

Through October, RATP, the world's fifth largest public transport company will feature photographs by Magnum Photos' Bruce Gilden in 16 of its subway stations. The theme of the exhibition is urban mobility in the five cities where the RATP group operates: Hong Kong, Johannesburg, Manchester, New York and Paris. Gilden’s 41 photographs will be on display in multiple locations totaling nearly 300 images.

All Photos: (C) Bruno Marguerite RATP

PhotoIrelandDublin

(C) Katrin Koenning

Australians have a strong presence at this year’s Photoireland which kicks off on 1st July in Dublin for a month. Melbourne’s Katrin Koenning continues her European tour with an exhibition of new works; the Australian Centre for Photography presents Island - Australia a group show curated by Claire Monneraye that features a range of genres from street photography to documentary and fine art with works by Markus Andersen, Katelyn Jane-Dunn, Charles Kasprzak, Kristian Laemmle-Ruff, Jesse Marlow, Raphaela Rosella, Chris Round, David Maurice Smith, Juliet Taylor and Wouter Van De Voorde and; the Asia Pacific Photobook Archive will also present a selection of books from its collection. To find out more visit the Festival here

Auckland Festival of Photography

Charity Auction

On Tuesday 30th June, the inaugural Auckland Festival of Photography Charity Auction will be held at 6.30pm at Webb’s at 23-25 Falcon St Parnell. You can bid on photographic works by emerging and established New Zealand photographers. There’s 55 photographic works up for grabs. Check out the catalogue here.

June 19, 2015

There will be no Friday Round Up this week due to a death in the family. My partner's mother, Marian Williams, passed away suddenly on Saturday 13th June and will be sadly missed by all who knew her. I'll be back posting next Friday. Until then, take care and enjoy every moment you have with those you love.

June 12, 2015

This week on Friday Round Up - the third annual Portrait(s) Festival opens in Vichy, France, the Ballarat International Foto Biennale launches its annual fundraiser, and Yellow Korner's June Pop Up Galleries with Serge Ramelli.

Photos of the Week:

Road melts in New Delhi Heatwave May 2015 (C)Harish Tyagi/EPA

Migrants gather rain water, Myanmar June 2015

(C) Soe Zeya Tun/ Reuters

Festivals:

Portrait(s)

Vichy, France

12 June - 6 September

The third annual Portraits Festival kicks off today in Vichy, France, with a stellar line up. Here's a sample of what's on offer. See full program here.

Bruce Wrighton - At Home
In 1988 American photographer Bruce Wrighton died at the age of 38 leaving behind an extraordinary series of portraits taken in the small town of Binghampton, in New York State, where he lived. These portraits capture ‘the disinherited of America,’ anonymous citizens who came across Wrighton's path. Around 30 of these portraits are on show at Vichy. Wrighton's work sits amongst some of my favourite street photography.

Kourtney Roy - Self-Portraits
Another favourite photographer is Canadian Kourtney Roy whose series of self-portraits tackle the issue of female stereotyping. In these highly stylised, almost cinematic images, Roy poses as the pin-up, air hostess and beauty queen amongst others, exposing the farcical notion of the perfect woman.

Alejandro Cartagena - Carpoolers
Dominican photographer Alejandro Cartagena’s series Car Poolers documents thousands of Mexican workers as they cross Mexico City on their daily commute. Using the same framing for each image, Cartegena’s series evokes the monotony of this daily grind.

There are also works by Mat Jacob, Elliott Erwitt, Ronan Guillou and Martin Schoeller on show amongst others.

This year the Ballarat International Foto Biennale will be held from 22 August - 20 September in Ballarat, 90 minutes from Melbourne.

At the annual fundraising event for the Biennale, to be held Sunday 12 July, 150 prints from 150 photographers will be up for grabs. Buy a red dot for $125 and select your image. If you can’t attend on the day, you can select online. Photographs have been donated by Australian and international artists to help the Festival raise funds. Visit the website for all the details.

Sunday 12 July

Gallery Eleven40

1140 Malvern Road

Malvern (Melbourne)

Yellow Korner POP Up Galleries

This month Serge Ramelli and his epic black and white works of Paris and New York are in focus at the Yellow Korner Pop Up Galleries - check out the website for details.

June 05, 2015

This week on Friday Round Up - farewell to Mary Ellen Mark, new exhibitions for Melbourne, Konrad Winkler launches new book and #dysturb in Pro Photo magazine.

Photos of the week:Australian Adam Ferguson - Nepal Earthquake

(C) Adam Ferguson for TIME

(C) Adam Ferguson for TIME

Farewell to Mary Ellen Mark

Mary Ellen Mark at an exhibition of her work at the Leica Gallery Los Angeles (C) Todd Williamson/AP 2013

I was fortunate to interview Mary Ellen Mark in 2014 and was greatly saddened to hear of her passing last week. You can read my interview with her on L'Oeil de la Photographie. One of the highlights of my journalistic career.

Here's an excerpt: Like other notable photographers Mark studied painting and art history before photography came into her life. “When I went to university I wanted to be either an architect or painter, a fine artist; I found being a painter very isolating. As for being an architect, that’s very academic, very difficult and I am not a good engineer,” she laughs.

At graduate school Mark took a major in photojournalism; it was a light bulb moment. “Photography became an immediate love for me. I had always read books about photography and was always fascinated with great photography. But it hadn’t occurred to me that it was something I could do myself until I got to graduate school and picked up a camera in my very early twenties”....

(C) Julie Millowick Love is the Drug on the Jukebox, Kookaburra Cafe, Frankston

A Day in the Life of Australia, 1981

Melbourne photographer Julie Millowick was a student at Prahran Arts College in its heyday. In this exhibition she showcases images captured during the 1970’s, using a Nikon F film camera and one lens - a 50 mm standard.

"With that camera hanging over my shoulder, I walked around St Kilda, where I lived, and Fitzroy, where I did pro bono work for the Brotherhood of St Laurence. And.....I talked to people. Sometimes I made a photograph of them, sometimes I didn’t.

There seems to be a quietness, for want of a better word, about the photographs that reflects the long ago decade of the 1970’s. A time that was definitely pre-digital. A time that was definitely prior to the daily saturation in our lives of the photographic image."

LunaSix Light Meter around his neck. A Llegendary Fashion and Advertising

Photographer, Athol had a studio at the Paris End of Collins Street for decades.

He retired from commercial photograhy in the1970's to take up Head of Photography

Department at Prahran College of Advanced Education. Julie Millowick was one of his students.

(C) Julie Millowick Limurru, Fitzroy, 1975

Millowick is now a teacher of the online photojournalism course at Latrobe University and is sharing the gallery space with one of her graduates, Christine Sayer who is exhibiting her work, Deconstructing Dementia.

Three year old collective Image Chasers, comprises a group of “passionate” Victorian photographers. In the exhibition Melbourne Is… they present their unique views of Melbourne taking the audience beyond the “tourist brochure view of Melbourne to capture a side of the city that perhaps we do not always see”.

(C) Chris May

(C) Helga Leunig

(C) Roger Arnall

"Melbourne Is…not the place you might think it is. Many stereotype descriptives have been written about Melbourne. ‘The world’s most liveable city’…’Four seasons in one day’…’The garden state’… But underneath all these flowery statements, lies an urban subtext – A city of counter cultures and contradictions. Graceful buildings from our colonial past stand defiant against brave new futuristic visions.

"Melbourne is light and dark and all shades in between. It’s home to a migrant’s tale or a cabinetmaker’s workshop. A stage for lovers’ trysts, lost souls, found treasures and sleeping rough.

Melbourne. A city that is so many things to so many people. A place that is as diverse as its 4 million plus inhabitants."

Specialist photography book publisher M.33 will launch Konrad Winkler’s new book Moments of My Life on Sunday June 14 in St. Kilda. The book contains a number of classic photographs from Winkler’s 45 year career. Interspersed throughout the book are Winkler’s writings making Moments of My Life more an artist’s diary giving insight into the image beyond mere description of time and place. I’m looking forward to reviewing this one.

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A journalist for over 25 years, Alison Stieven-Taylor is currently a features writer for Pro Photo magazine, a contributor to The Australian Weekend Magazine, The Australian Financial Review and the Oceanic correspondent for L’Oeil de la Photographie amongst other titles. Alison is also a lecturer in journalism and holds a Master of Communication and Media Studies (Monash University). She is currently working on her PhD on photojournalism. Alison is also the author of three books including the best-selling biography “Rock Chicks: The Hottest Female Rockers from the1960s to Now”.